Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich of Russia

Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich of Russia (13 June 1860-28 January 1919) was the son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich of Russia and a first cousin of Czar Alexander III of Russia. He was murdered by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War.

Biography
Dmitry Konstantinovich was born in Strelna, Russian Empire in 1860, the son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich of Russia and Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg. He ignored his father's wishes for him to enter the Imperial Russian Navy, instead choosing to serve in the Imperial Russian Army. In 1889, he rose to the rank of Captain, followed by promotion to Colonel in 1892. In 1896, Czar Nicholas II of Russia promoted Dmitry to Major-General, and he became a Lieutenant-General in 1904. He decided to retire from the army in the early 1900s to focus on his love for horses, and he was almost blind by the time that World War I broke out in 1914. He was in Petrograd at the time of the start of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and the Bolsheviks targeted the apolitical Dmitry solely because he was a relative of Czar Nicholas II. On 28 January 1919, Dmitry and two other Russian Grand Dukes were executed by a Bolshevik firing squad at the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.